


In Another Life

by midorimortem



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AU, AU Compilation, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Will add tags as the chapters are done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 23:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midorimortem/pseuds/midorimortem
Summary: Compilation of MidoTaka Alternate Universe short scenarios.Spanish version in FF netPrologueChapter 1 - Coffee ShopChapter 2 & 3 -Coming soon





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “There are a lot of things i wanted to do. […]  
> I wish i could have five lives!  
> Then i could have been born in five different towns,  
> and eaten five lifetime’s worth of food.  
> I’d have had five different careers,  
> and… I’d have fallen in love with the same person, five times”  
> -Orihime Inoue  
> Bleach, chapter 237

# Prologue

It was a hot evening and the sky was turning a bright peach color as the minutes went by. Midorima observed through the hospital window as the sky changed colors and the night began to settle. He was sitting on the unconfortable guest seat, as he had asked Takao’s parents to let him stay for the night, hoping the doctors would let him go home by tomorrow morning. Worst case scenario, Shintaro just had to call his father so that he would check on his partner if his health worsened.

“How’re you feeling?” He asked, concerned. The boy rose towards the bed so that Kazunari would look at him as they spoke.

“I won’t die, I hope. The wounds are itchy, but the sedatives are doing their work. Let’s hope my luck will be better next time, don’t you think?"

“Don’t be stupid. You have to get better soon, the team needs you and we can’t allow our captain to be out of shape.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, beloved ace.” Takao laughed to himself, hurt by the stitches on his sides, close to his ribs where the knife had puncured deeply into his flesh. Whenever the wounds bothered him the most was when Takao regretted acting like a hero on that failed attempt of a robery. He did not regret that Shin-chan had not suffered a single scratch, though.

“In other words… it’s better if you rest and gather some strenght. You’re getting another blood transfusion tomorrow morning before we get to know if you can go back home or if you need to stay here another day.”

“You do speak like a doctor.” Takao smiled and immediately changed his gesture for a pained grimace. “Hey… Shin-chan?”

“Hm?”

“If something had happened to you that day, I…” he tried to speak, but he was too afraid to finish that sentence and he felt a knot on his throat as he tried to finish.

“I know. I was scared too and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did. Do not ever try that again, please.”

“What matters is that we’re both here and now, eh?” Takao took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he smiled, trying to think positively. The disadvantages of being hopelessly optimistic were that reality used to be a lot more cruel than he wanted, and he constantly asked himself what would have happened if the police had not arrived on time. It was better not to think of it and try to get some rest, but his mouth did not follow the isntructions and kept talking.

“Shin-chan, if I had died…” Midorima opened his eyes wide in surprise, because Takao had avoided the topic ever since the incident happened. He was unsure he wanted to hear anything else either. “I know we’d meet again in another life.”

“What does that have to do with anything, Takao? Don’t even mention it. Nothing happened and we have to be thankful you’re here.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Kazunari sighed and leaned on the bed, closing his eyes again. “I just know that if we met some other way, through other circumstances… if it had not been because of basketball or the school, I know our paths would cross again at some point. It’s just a thought, but I think we’d meet again in some other life, Shin-chan.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Midorima said with a shy smile. He fixed Takao’s hair with his fingers, lovingly and slowly, and sat besides his bed until his partern’s breathing became steady and slow, and the only thing that could be heard across the room were the sounds of the electrocardigraph, showing Takao’s calm and healthy hearbeats.


	2. Chapter 1- Christmas Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Coffee Shop Alternate Universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late, but happy Holidays! I'll try to update this at least once a month, and I promise I'll wrap things up with that other fic once I come back from vacations!

Takao was cleaning the tables as the clock marked 11:30. He had told his shift partner to go home, since he did not think they’d get any more clients through the night, not on Christmas Eve. He was turning the chairs around and was ready to turn off the lights to close the shop, when the doorbell rang and one last, one goddamn last client entered the café.

Takao sighed and rolled his eyes, but he managed his best smile when the stranger walked in and removed the snow from his hair. The instructions were to keep the shop open until midnight, and since nobody waited for him at home, Takao did not expect to have any special dinner and offered himself to cover the midnight shift on his own. He could manage one last looney that had nothing better to do on Chrismas Eve, hoping he was not interested in muggling the cashier on the counter.

“You were about to close.” The stranged assured, staring at Takao slowly. He spoke with doubts, as if it was not painfully obvious that the shopkeeper was about to leave, and yet there he was, interrupting and bothering him. “Can I ask you for a latte before you go?”

“Ah, sure… are you japanese?” The boy had taken notice of the accent. His client should not be much older than him, even if he was a lot taller than Takao. He had elegant black rimmed glasses and bright green hair that fell atop of his eyes, which were also emerald colored. His clothes were sober but fashionable, and he was very, veyr good looking, if Takao allowed himself to think that about a client. That did not save him from Takao’s hatred, just because he decided to pop up twenty minutes before he had the chance to go home for the night.

“Yes, from Tokyo.” The greenhaired man talked back in japanese. “Where are you from?”

“From Tokyo as well, from Edogawa.” The client nodded and sat at the counter, waiting for his coffee. Takao could imagine they both shared very similar situations that evening, both very far away from their families to even think about going back for the holidays to their hometown. What Takao could not comprehend was that someone so handsome could be spending Christmas Eve on his own, at a cheap café in the middle of a deserted street in New York City.

“The world’s a small place, apparently. My family’s also from there.”

“How do you take it?” He asked, pouring the coffee into a metalic cup to keep it warm before adding the milk.

“Whole milk and pumpkin spice.”

“ _Pumpkin?_ Don’t you mean cinnamon?” He asked estranged, as he looked around the cabinet for the correct spice beneath the counter. The green haired man shook his head and averted his eyes, as if nothing had happened.

“No. An aquaintance told me this coffee shop has pumpkin spice latte the entire year, not just on October.”

“It’s an unusual request, but it’s true.” Takao scratched his head, leaned down again to search deeper in the spice cabinet, until he found the britght orange colored powder that was on the back. “Pumpkin spice latte fan?”

“Not really, I’ve never tasted it.” The man blushed and tried to avoid Takao’s stare at all costs. “Oha Asa said it was today’s lucky ítem and I could not find where to buy it up until now.”

“Oha Asa? The fortune-telling show?” Takao laughed and finished serving the coffee. The client took out his wallet and paid with the precise cash. Kazunari couldn’t help but notice there was not a single wrinkle on the bill’s surface.

“It’s… an old traidition.”

“Hey, who am I to judge? I don’t even know you, after all… how is it?”

The stranger took a first sip and strangely, Takao noticed he was surprised by the taste from the way his eyebrows rose. He nodded slighly and smiled with a shy gesture.

“It’s really good.”

“Can I offer you anything else to take?” He asked, smiling kindly. Takao had imagined this one last client would drive him mad, but he’d sympathized with him somehow, maybe because of their simmilar backgrounds and their shared solitude through Chrismas Eve.

“No, thanks. Would you mind if I stick around to finish this? It’s freezing outside.”

“Sure. If you don’t mind, I’ll finish cleaning and I’ll close up the shop. As son as you’re done, I’m also leaving.”

“Are you alone today?” Takao nodded and insisted his roommate had ditched him for his girlfriend that evening, and since he could not afford the luxury of visiting Japan more than once a year, he had to spend the holidays working.

“What about you? It seems you’re better off spending your time with a coffee shopkeeper rather than with your girlfriend or your family.”

To his amusement, the man snorted and smiled ironicaly.

“If I _had_ a girlfriend, I’m sure my parents would not have thrown me out of the house.”

 _Oh_.

Takao blushed slightly and decided to get himself some black coffee, no milk, no sugar. He sat right in front of the stranger, thinking he might be tempting too much at his own luck. The man was very handsome, if Takao allowed himself, he was just his type. Now that he had no manager watching over him, nobody would mind if he kept on talking with this stranger until something good came out of it. After all, it was better to get to know someone new for a few minutes rather than going back home on his own to watch movies as he scratched his cat’s back until he fell asleep.

“So you’re running away, huh?”

“Running away sounds terribly wrong. I prefer the Word exhiled.”

“As if exhiled does not sound terrybly wrong!” Takao laughed and leaned on the counter.

“I can live with that. Have you been in America for long?”

“A couple of years… I came here to study journalism, but stayed for quite a lot of stuff. Mostly because people tend to be much more liberal and open about… certian topics, that the Japanese are still pretty much conservative about them.”

_Oh._

This time it was the client’s turn to be slightly impressed, but he smiled kindly as he noticed they had another thing in common. He commented he had been here for just one year, but he had the chance to finish school on his hometown and now was saving money to start a master’s degree in biology.

“Well… it’s almost midnight.” The stranger said after a long time, much longer after he’d finished his coffee. “It was delicious. Thanks.”

“You can come back whenever you want. We're the only idiots who have Pumpkin Spice Latte 12 months of the year.” Takao laughed, not even trying to hide he was blatantly flirting with his client.

“Yes, I think I will. Your menu looks… quite interesting.”

Takao laughed and warmed himself up before dragging the curtain down and walking out into the snow. The stranger fixed his scarf and waited for the shopkeeper to close all of the locks and offered to call him a cab since he made him wait more than half an hour and the subway was already closed. The black haired man insisted it was no problem, since he lived close by and had his bike parked just across the street.

“Well, it was very nice to meet you,uh…”

“Ah, Shintaro. It was also my pleasure…”

“Kazunari.” He offered a handshake and took a chance of his lack of inhibitions and excess of self-assurance with strangers to drag his arm towards himseld and write his name and phone number on his forearm. “Come back whenever you want.”

“I will, if you prepare my drink.”

Both of them walked towards different sides of the street after sharing a mischievous smile. As Takao unbinded his bike, Midorima asked for a private drive with his phone, they crossed sights again from opposite corners fo the block. Takao pedaled back to the entrance where the other man was standing and stopped right in front of him, taking a deep but nervous breath. 

“Maybe I’m being a little, too insolent, but… do you have any plans for New Year’s Eve?” 

Midorima smiled, astonished, but shook his head. He removed one of his leather gloves and took Takao’s arm. He removed the permanent marker from the shopkeeper's shirt’s pocket and wrote his number and his place’s address on his skin. Takao froze for a second but smiled right afterwards, nodding.

Thinking back, it had been an excelent idea to stick up until midnight at the café that goddamned Christmas Eve.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments keep authors healthy and happy. Haters will be sold to the circus.


End file.
